


The Limits of Fatherhood

by Evitcani



Series: Living and Dying Beneath the Veil [9]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Depending on Your Definition of Happy, Gen, I mean, Taako and his boy Angus, and ending, fight, happy ending i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 21:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10625286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evitcani/pseuds/Evitcani
Summary: Angus has a fight with Taako over being told he's not allowed to go on a dangerous investigation. He just wants his dad to see that people need him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burtlebee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burtlebee/gifts).



> Can be read without the rest of the series in mind.
> 
> Someone requested I detail this fight that was briefly mentioned in _This is Family_.

The door slammed with all the force the world's greatest detective could muster. Angus slunk down behind his bedroom door. He knew he was only thirteen, just a little boy. He didn't need his dad to remind him of that. _No_ , he didn't need _Taako_ to remind him of that. He summoned all the fire and brimstone he could and yelled, "You're not my real dad, sir! I hate you!" Angus knew it was mean, but so was Taako. 

Angus thought of all the different ways he could sneak out when Taako wasn't paying attention. Still, the investigation would take longer than a night. His guardian was bound to notice him missing. _Unless_ he made an illusionary double to sit at his desk. Angus smiled wide and lay his head down on the floor to peek and see if he saw anyone. Taako was standing right outside the door. 

A few minutes passed, then Taako shuffled off to his own room. Angus breathed a sigh of relief and quietly cracked his door open, tip-toeing down to the library. After a few minutes, he found the spell book he was looking for. Some digging later, he found one that was verbal only. He thought that he could cast the spell through a stone of far-speech and maintain it for that much. 

It took Angus another hour to find a spare stone of far-speech. Another hour to pack and Angus had carefully levitated himself down to the grass below his window. Since Angus had been called into the investigation, no one questioned his presence when the train finally got him to his destination. He'd left the stone of far-speech on, so when morning dawned back in the city he heard Taako gently rapping on his door. Angus held his stone of far-speech up to his ear as he scanned the crime scene. 

"Bubala, I'm going to get breakfast." There was a long pause. "Do you want macarones?" Angus thought macarones sounded good, but it wasn't like he was there. Another long pause. "Okay, okay, I get it, pumpkin, you're still mad," Taako sounded _defeated_. Angus blinked away the twin pricks at the corners of his eyes. 

The man deserved it for putting people at risk. Angus was an expert in these areas and they needed to solve this case as quickly as possible so more people didn't get hurt. He shoved down anything besides the satisfied feeling that he was teaching Taako a lesson. 

It wasn't until midday that Taako tried again. "Angles, I'm coming in." Angus stopped in the middle of biting into a sandwich one of the militia people had made for him. The door rattled and he was glad he'd just recast the illusion. There was a long silence, then the door closed again. 

While Angus was turning over the clues on the desk he'd been loaned late that night, he heard Taako loudly coming up the stairs. The elf's bedroom door shut loudly and Angus thought that was unusual. He pushed it away, he needed to focus.

Angus was both glad and sad when he only heard light knocking in the morning and then nothing else the rest of the day. He was able to concentrate on the investigation. He almost forgot about the illusion as he was wrapped up in the puzzle. The detective felt like he almost had _all_ the pieces. As he poured over the clues in the empty militia office, he heard Taako stumbling upstairs loudly again. There was a crashing, swears, then the elf's bedroom door slammed. Angus frowned down at his stone.

Taako had almost certainly been drunk. Normally, he didn't drink much more than a glass of wine. Pushing aside that thought, it clicked that _wine_ was the last piece he needed. 

The next morning, there was no noise. Angus left the stone back in his loaned desk while they hunted the liches that had started the whole thing. By the next morning, they had all but one. The detective put his stone back around his neck and fidgeted with it. The rest of the day was silent except for Taako's door opening and closing in the morning.

That night, as he outlined the possible hiding place of the last lich, he heard Taako stomping up the stairs again. There was another crash and a cry of pain that made Angus freeze. A loud knocking at Angus's bedroom door. "Pumpkin, pumpkin, I'm sorry," Taako's words were slurred and muffled against the wood. Angus stood up, jotting down a quick note about a family emergency to the militia. "I was scared." 

Angus felt like he deserved to listen to Taako's broken, drunk sobbing through the whole process of buying the first train ticket back to the city. Eventually, he heard his dad's loud attempts to stand and the door closing to the other bedroom. The detective didn't sleep very much on the train. He used a spell to run as fast he could back to his house, climbing back up to the open window as dawn broke the day. 

He charged over to Taako's bedroom door, knocking loudly and then throwing it open. Taako was sprawled across his bed and _definitely_ hungover as he cracked bloodshot eyes open to blink at Angus in alarm. Angus jumped on the bed, hugging Taako tightly. Taako grunted from the force, looking around and trying to process what was going on. "Dad, I'm _so_ sorry," Angus had been trying not to cry, but he couldn't help the little hiccups. "I was so mean, I'm sorry; I love you." 

His dad hugged him back carefully as he caught up. "Hey, hey, no waterworks, my man," Taako's voice sounded strained, like he was also on the edge of crying. "We're alright, huh? We're alright, pumpkin." His dad let him keep the hug for a few more moments. "Uhm, my dude, this is a Hallmark moment and all, but you're no longer a _little_ boy. You're sorta squashing me," Taako laughed awkwardly. 

Angus sat up, laughing awkwardly, too, and eased off the bed. He rubbed at his face. "Well, only little boys cry, sir," he joked. "So it couldn't have been that bad."

Taako looked at him sharply. "No, listen here, bubala, _everyone_ cries. I cried stubbing my toe yesterday." He paused, looking off and rubbing at his own face. "Among other things," he mumbled under his breath. Angus had the feeling he wasn't supposed to have heard that. "And don't you worry, pumpkin. Everyone gets mad sometimes and says things they don't mean. It's not like I was gonna jump in front of a train, right?" He laughed, huffing, and started getting up. Angus stiffened slightly. 

That had been an oddly specific ' _joke_ '. 

"Let me get somethin' less wrinkled on and, _ugh_ , a shower. Then, maybe we could go get macarones?" His dad turned a bright, hopeful smile on him. 

Angus hesitated, taking a deep breath. The boy detective was looking for the right words to tell Taako that he needed him; Taako was his _dad_. "They're not as good as the ones you make, sir. Nothing compares," he turned his own hopeful cheer on Taako.

Taako looked at his hands, then back up at Angus. "I-I-," he licked his lips and folded his hands together in his lap. "Yeah, okay, sure, Agnes, whatever you want. We'll make some fuckin' macarones." His fake cheer conflicted with the terror that was clear as the day coming through the windows.

This was the opposite of what Angus wanted. "Y-you don't have to," he corrected quickly, waving his hands. "You could take a bite out of each one if it made you feel better?" He was scrambling to think of something that would reassure his dad. That felt like something that was better than his dad worrying about accidentally hurting Angus. He cringed back from the thought immediately. It had a few flaws.

"What, like your personal poison tester?" Taako snorted, then looked up at Angus's face. That had been the first flaw Angus had realized in his plan. Angus couldn't quite grasp all the confusing and conflicting emotions going on under the mask of a smile. He opened his mouth to shout, ' _Just kidding!_ ' The smile dipped as Taako seemed to settle on some conclusion. "Not a bad job, pumpkin, not a bad job at all," he laughed, standing. Angus closed his mouth. "Why don't you go get the ingredients ready. You know what to put in them, right?" 

Angus nodded mutely. Taako shuffled into the bathroom. When he was gone, Angus rubbed the tears away from his face again. He felt so awful for making his dad worry and it made it worse he had been forgiven before he even did it. 

It didn't take the world's greatest detective to figure out Taako would die for him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always down for Taako & Angus dad/son bonding. 
> 
> Feel free to follow my [Tumblr](https://evitcani-writes.tumblr.com/).


End file.
